Home base stations, home NodeBs, femto eNodeBs or any other type of home access device (in the following referred to as “HNB”) have become a widely discussed topic within 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) as well as in the operator and manufacturer community. When deployed in homes and offices, HNBs allow subscribers to use their existing handsets—in a building—with significantly improved coverage and increased broadband wireless performance. Moreover, Internet Protocol (IP) based architecture allows deployment and management in virtually any environment with broadband Internet service. Femto cells with HNBs thus enable small, low-cost cellular base stations aimed at improving indoor coverage, so that small cellular access points can be provided, that connect to a mobile operator's network using residential digital subscriber line (DSL) or cable broadband connections. The concept of femto cells is simple: making a base station cheap enough to be deployed in high volume for residential use, connected to the core network via broadband. This would deliver a subscriber the same service and benefit as a converged offering but, crucially, would use existing standard handsets, with no need to upgrade to expensive dual-mode devices.
In HNB scenarios, it is generally assumed that an end user is buying a cheap (Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) like) product and also installs this physical entity at his home. Such a HNB would then provide coverage/service to the terminals registered by the owner of the HNB. Still the HNB would use the same spectrum owned by the operator and as such at least partly the spectrum the operator is using to provide macro cell coverage to the area where the HNB is located in.
Besides third generation (3G) mobile communication systems, the interest of femto cell also applies equally to emerging wireless broadband technologies such as WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) and LTE.
A femto cell could provide mobile service to a terminal device (e.g. mobile station (MS) or user equipment (UE)) with high data throughput and better coverage if the terminal device is located within femto cell's coverage. Moreover, it is possible to have a specific pricing system for femto cells, which is different from that for macro cells depending on the operator's business model. For example, flat monthly payment for each femto cell at home or small office is possible.